Sunday, January 12, 2003

The poem produced below is purely non-fictional. Resemblance to any dead(!!) or living people is not at all coincidential.

IT HAPPENED LAST NIGHT

I reach the door braving the inclement weather
Swearing to buy two pairs of glove, wool and leather
My hand extracts the key with a painful whirl
The lock as frigid as a disinterested girl
I step in to be hit by a blizzard (albeit sedentary)
The sinking cold persists, turns out ain't momentary
Brain beeps to ask 'why still holding the icecube of a lock?'
Obedient hand bungs it like a slime covered rock
I sit on the old chair with slight spasmic jump
Cursing "Wood ain't a conductor, they taught me at that dump"
And the chill slowly turns to a seismic shiver
Should i have a quart of rum (to hell with the liver)?
I bend down to switch on the little convector/heater/blower
Press the 'warm' and 'hot' both, no point in keeping it lower
Keep my hands on my feet and place em in front of the gauze
'Wow, that feels nice, it's not yet a lost cause'!!
Now why is the right foot a weird blue and left foot a queer red?
Cover them with some blankets and place them on the cold bed
Too sleepy to check the mail, I shift under the warm cover
And go to sleep hugging myself like a long lost lover
4 a.m. I am jolted awake by the dream of a volcano shouting
Body covered in wholesome sweat, every pore spouting
The room is so hot, have I woken up in May?
Confounded by puzzlement, in the darkness I lay
Then suspiciously I peered at the culprit below the table
The heat it was spewing made the atmo unbearable
As invectives gathered in a queue on my tongue for the guy who made it
Brain beeped again with a thought and in my front laid it
'Who was the dude that pressed both 'warm' and 'hot' switches?
It's like no hole in the fabric but more than nine stitches'
Sagely I nodded and corrected my own error
Told the pores to stop sweating, no cause for terror
But I could not doze off as the sweat made me itchy
And I couldn't stand old brain being any more bitchy
So I took a Hemingway, and put on my glasses
And was reading in my bed till it was time for classes
As I stepped outside my room, it was January that hit me not May
This goddamn Lucknow cold acts like it's here to stay!!